Carlos Cruz-Diez

A leading member of the Kinetic and Op Art Movements of the 1950s and ’60s, Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez has dedicated his practice to the exploration of color, line, and human perception. Instantly recognizable as Cruz-Diez's own, his dizzying compositions are vividly rendered in bright colors and often feature a moiré effect, as the artist is particularly interested in how the viewer participates in art. Indeed, as one experiences a work by Cruz-Diez, colors and patterns seemingly change and even move, an effect Cruz-Diez has termed vibrations. While he enjoyed a tremendous career as a painter, Cruz-Diez turned away from paint in 1959 and began to experiment with colored light and installation art.

Of his art, Cruz-Diez explains, "There is nothing random about my work; everything is thought out, programmed, and coded. Freedom and emotions are only involved when combining colors, a task that is required to live up to a particular standard: it must do a good job of expressing what I am trying to say. It is a blending of reason and the emotions. I do not get inspired; I think." 

Cruz-Diez has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogotá, the Miami Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and in 1970, he represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale.